Not sure if this is a thread elsewhere but I couldn’t find one. I went down the rabbit hole of researching as to why the S-3 Viking was retired. As an NFO applicant reading through ancient threads here, the mission just seemed like the cream of the crop for a too-tall-for-strike-fighters guy like myself. As a submarine qualified enlisted, I’ve also not been oblivious to the Russian submarine renaissance that has occurred at a staggering pace.
Reading through the few speculative articles posted on various blogs, proceedings, and news sources, it seems the consensus in many schools of thought is that the S-3 or an S-3 like platform was retired too early.
ASW modules have been tossed around for use on strike fighters, SV-22s, and the MQ-25. Pretty much every author has discredited the notion based on the fact that the proposed modules would not be a capable enough option, nor would the associated communities (save for maybe the non-existent SV-22) be able to have sufficient enough cross training to support effective deployment.
The Stingray is meant to replace the recovery airborne refueling filled by the other big deck platforms, and the program (to my knowledge) has not even been deployed to a carrier as of yet. That would require leaps and bounds of training efforts to accomplish that as an effective role.
Strike Fighters outfitted with lightweight torpedos are about as effective as shooting a bear with a .22 in my opinion so that option just seems preposterous.
The SV-22 is unlikely to happen in the near term. The navy has hardly even begun the transition of the CMV-22 role of COD replacement platforms.
Rotary wing of course plays a role in short range ASW, and P-8s in the long range. This still leaves a very important defensive layer left completely vulnerable.
With Russia pumping out the Severodvinsk class submarines, and progressing with supersonic ASCMs, this is a rather poor time to have that layer unchecked.
I know that the idea for resuscitating the stored S-3s was tossed around in the mid 2010s. But, there is not much information to be garnered on what the Navy is actually planning to fill this role. An already existing, with doctrine, platform seems like an easy stopgap solution.
Either way, a dedicated replacement platform seems to be the best option. Unmanned platforms can only accomplish so much and are entirely dependent on non-degraded C2. I don’t see a potential peer war not resulting in wide scale EW/heavy blackout warfare. It just makes sense to consolidate the detection, hunting, and killing to a single platform with human operators to make on the fly (pun intended) decisions. Namely one that has enough analog redundancy to function in a degraded environment. AI, though making significant progress, will likely never be reliable enough in an ASW scenario to make unsupervised kill-chain solutions. Although ISR could easily be still functional in a totally denied C2 environment, nothing lethal should ever be trusted to autonomous AI.
I’d like to know what you aviators think of the subject!
Reading through the few speculative articles posted on various blogs, proceedings, and news sources, it seems the consensus in many schools of thought is that the S-3 or an S-3 like platform was retired too early.
ASW modules have been tossed around for use on strike fighters, SV-22s, and the MQ-25. Pretty much every author has discredited the notion based on the fact that the proposed modules would not be a capable enough option, nor would the associated communities (save for maybe the non-existent SV-22) be able to have sufficient enough cross training to support effective deployment.
The Stingray is meant to replace the recovery airborne refueling filled by the other big deck platforms, and the program (to my knowledge) has not even been deployed to a carrier as of yet. That would require leaps and bounds of training efforts to accomplish that as an effective role.
Strike Fighters outfitted with lightweight torpedos are about as effective as shooting a bear with a .22 in my opinion so that option just seems preposterous.
The SV-22 is unlikely to happen in the near term. The navy has hardly even begun the transition of the CMV-22 role of COD replacement platforms.
Rotary wing of course plays a role in short range ASW, and P-8s in the long range. This still leaves a very important defensive layer left completely vulnerable.
With Russia pumping out the Severodvinsk class submarines, and progressing with supersonic ASCMs, this is a rather poor time to have that layer unchecked.
I know that the idea for resuscitating the stored S-3s was tossed around in the mid 2010s. But, there is not much information to be garnered on what the Navy is actually planning to fill this role. An already existing, with doctrine, platform seems like an easy stopgap solution.
Either way, a dedicated replacement platform seems to be the best option. Unmanned platforms can only accomplish so much and are entirely dependent on non-degraded C2. I don’t see a potential peer war not resulting in wide scale EW/heavy blackout warfare. It just makes sense to consolidate the detection, hunting, and killing to a single platform with human operators to make on the fly (pun intended) decisions. Namely one that has enough analog redundancy to function in a degraded environment. AI, though making significant progress, will likely never be reliable enough in an ASW scenario to make unsupervised kill-chain solutions. Although ISR could easily be still functional in a totally denied C2 environment, nothing lethal should ever be trusted to autonomous AI.
I’d like to know what you aviators think of the subject!
